Already, if you get laided (*giggle*) off, and you're eligible for unemployment, the state pays a decent chunk of your COBRA premium so you can stay on your current insurance plan.

This is for us folks who are lucky enough to have an employer that OFFERS health insurance. Currently, employers, even large ones, aren't required to offer health insurance for all categories of workers, which means we have working people who aren't insured.

Having been insured at various points, I know that if I go to a $200 doctor's visit because I feel a little funny, I'm going to be footing the bill, since I didn't quite qualify for MassHealth or freecare. If I don't have the $200 and I wait until the condition gets worse and I have a disgusting infection and am passing out and need to be hospitalized, then I'm going to be eligible to have the entire $17000 hospital bill written off because the financial people at the hospital have decided that I clearly don't have an extra $17000 hanging around. So people who use that medical center and/or taxpayers end up paying for my $17000 bill since there is currently no system in place requiring my employer or the state or anyone to have offered me a health plan so I could just pay for the doctor's visit.

Keep in mind too that in the real-life example I gave, I was young, generally healthy, had housing, had steady work, had an appropriate support network, wasn't raising any kids, and so forth. Imagine how much worse an untreated illness would be for someone who was a single parent, stressed out like crazy, working 3 jobs and eating fast food, maybe dealing with housing issues or domestic violence. This person would be much more likely to become seriously ill from an untreated minor illness, which could put this person at risk of losing housing, affect this person's kids, and so forth. It's better for everyone involved if this person's employer would just provide insurance and/or if the state had an affordable buy-in program for people who don't qualify for MassHealth or freecare.

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com